Skip to main content

London tops global congestion ranking, says report

The Inrix Traffic Scorecard 2015, which measures progress in improving urban mobility, reveals strong economic growth and record population levels resulting in London becoming the first city to surpass 100 hours wasted per driver in gridlock. The report analysed traffic congestion in more than 100 cities worldwide. London topped the list, with drivers wasting an average of 101 hours, or more than four days, in gridlock in 2015. Across the UK, drivers spent 30 hours on average in delays last year, consist
March 15, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The 163 Inrix Traffic Scorecard 2015, which measures progress in improving urban mobility, reveals strong economic growth and record population levels resulting in London becoming the first city to surpass 100 hours wasted per driver in gridlock.

The report analysed traffic congestion in more than 100 cities worldwide. London topped the list, with drivers wasting an average of 101 hours, or more than four days, in gridlock in 2015. Across the UK, drivers spent 30 hours on average in delays last year, consistent with 2014, but the UK dropped to sixth in the European ranking as a result of Switzerland seeing a rise in traffic levels. Belgium remains Europe’s most gridlocked country, with drivers stuck in traffic for 44 hours on average.

Of the 13 European countries analysed, 70 per cent experienced a decrease in congestion in 2015. This can be attributed to a sluggish Europe-wide economy, with an average quarterly GDP growth rate of 0.3 per cent in the second half of last year, which remains below the pre-crisis peak of 2008. Belgium topped the list with drivers spending 44 hours in traffic congestion, followed by the Netherlands (39 hours) and Germany (38).

Although London topped the list of Europe’s most gridlocked cities, Stuttgart experienced the highest increase, reaching 73 average hours wasted in 2015, an increase of 14 per cent from 2014. Both Cologne (5.2 hours) and Antwerp (6.6 hours) experienced significant increases in delays.

Brussels, Europe’s most congested city in 2012 and 2013, experienced a significant drop in delays in 2015, achieving 70 hours wasted in traffic, a decline of more than four hours from 2014 and moving the city to fifth in the ranking.

At the global city level, London tops the list of gridlock-plagued cities, with 101 hours of delay, followed by Los Angeles (81 hours), Washington DC (75), San Francisco (75), Houston (74), New York (73), Stuttgart (73), Antwerp (71), Cologne (71) and Brussels (70).

Of the countries measured by the Inrix Traffic Scorecard, the US leads with the highest annual hours wasted in traffic – an average of nearly 50 hours in 2015 – outranking Belgium (44 hours), Netherlands (39), Germany (38), Luxembourg (33), Switzerland (30), UK (30) and France (28).

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Global tour bus operator increasing use of GreenRoad technology
    July 13, 2012
    GreenRoad, a specialist in driver performance and safety management, has announced that Big Bus Tours, the largest operator of open-top sightseeing tours in the world, is expanding its use of GreenRoad from London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi to its fleet of 17 buses touring San Francisco. It is also considering deploying GreenRoad in a further 88 buses in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Washington DC, Las Vegas and Miami.
  • Q-Free reports increased revenue, major tag order
    August 14, 2014
    Q-Free has been awarded an order for OBU610 tags from Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) in Australia at a value of US$2.4 million, to be delivered within the second quarter of 2015. “Q-Free has supplied more than two million tags to RMS, representing an important basis for our activity in Australia. We are pleased to see the continued strength of this particular relationship and of our competitiveness in the Australian market,” comments Q-Free CEO Thomas Falck. Q-Free also reported increased revenues
  • Make traffic policing and casualty reduction a priority, says charity
    April 29, 2015
    A report released this week by road safety charity Brake and Direct Line has revealed that nearly half of UK drivers (49 per cent) admit to breaking traffic laws. Of those, half say they do so through inattention, while the other half admit to doing so deliberately, because they think they can get away with it or do not agree with the laws. When asked what unsafe driving behaviour they witnessed most, 71 per cent cited distraction such as from mobile phones, followed by tailgating speeding (67 per ce
  • Inrix partners with the AA to provide real-time incident and traffic flow updates
    December 11, 2015
    Transportation information provider Inrix has announced a partnership with the UK’s Automobile Association (AA) to provide real-time road incident and traffic flow updates to the AA’s members. Inrix’s real-time traffic data now powers the traffic news on the AA’s website, providing live incident reports, road closures and congestion notices – all of which are also available to AA members through the AA app. The two companies have joined forces to help drivers avoid traffic congestion, including del